While today's telecommunication transmission networks mainly rely on optical transmission, internal signal processing in the network elements of a transmission network is still electrical in most cases.
The recent definition of the multiplexing principles and bitrates of an Optical Transport Network (ITU-T G.709) introduces a three level hierarchy with bitrates of 2.7 Gbit/s, 10.7 Gbit/s and 43 Gbit/s. Therefore, equipment is required for electrically processing these high bitrate signals. In particular, one issue in question is the internal signal distribution over backplanes and electrical cables which may distort internal electrical signals.
It is therefore an object of the present invention, to provide an electrical signal regenerator for high bitrate electrical signals suitable to be used in network elements of an optical transmission network. Another object of the present invention is to provide a method of internally distributing high bitrate electrical signals. Yet another object of the present invention is to provide a network element for electrically processing the multiplex levels of the recently defined Optical Transmission Network (OTN) according to ITU-T G.709.